I am reading this book. Has anyone read this book?
God Against the Gods by Johnathan Kirsh.
I am half way through it, and can't help, so far,
to think that Christianity has brought to their ownselves
the persecution and grief they have expericanced. I just did not
know anything about the early history of Christianity in this way.
God Against the Gods:
The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism
By Jonathan Kirsch
Viking, 2004
God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism (Viking, 2004), by best-selling author Jonathan Kirsch, explores the final struggle between monotheism and polytheism in the ancient world and the roots of religious violence in the modern world.
Kirsch's controversial and illuminating new book demonstrates that, contrary to the conventional wisdom of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, religious liberty and diversity were core values of classical paganism -- and it was monotheism that introduced the terrors of true belief, including holy war, martyrdom, inquisitions, and crusades.
God Against the Gods focuses on the first stirrings of monotheism in ancient Egypt, traces the losing battle that early Judaism and Christianity fought against polytheism, and focuses on the climax of "the war between God and the gods" during the reigns of two charismatic and visionary Roman emperors -- Constantine, who started the Christian revolution that made the modern world, and Julian, who tried to restore paganism, all in the tumultuous period of the fourth century in the Roman Empire. They are a rare example of how two human beings, acting out of their own personal passions, literally changed the history of the world.
The last stand of paganism against monotheism is one of the great "what-if's" in history: how would the modern world look today if the worship of many gods had been tolerated instead of persecuted? Breaking a long-lived taboo, God Against the Godsreveals the dark side of monotheism and the bright side of polytheism, and shows how the world we live in today -- including the horrors of 9/11 and the war against terrorism -- are rooted in the oldest traditions of monotheism. And it tells the tale by focusing on the real lives of men and women, and by illuminating the ancient roots of today's most bloody conflicts as well as the cherished idea of religious liberty.